It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown made its television debut October 27, 1966. It is perennial Halloween watching for those of us who grew up with Charlie Brown and the gang. While everyone is out trick-or-treating, Linus sits in a pumpkin patch to wait for the Great Pumpkin.
It was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards: Outstanding Children's Program, Special Classifications of Individual Achievements for director Bill Melendez and writer Charles Schulz.
It lost the Children's Program award to Jack and the Beanstalk. Anyone remember that one?
I usually avoid posting about fictional characters for Black History Month, but Franklin, the first African-American character to appear in the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, was a gutsy move, given the climate in the 1960s. Franklin first appeared on July 31, 1968:
He and Charlie Brown became good friends but Franklin found some of Charlie Brown's other friends to be strange, i.e. Linus telling him about the Great Pumpkin.
Harriet Glickman, a school teacher in LA wrote to Schulz in April 1968 urging him to include a black character into the strip. Schulz initially worried that it would be perceived as patronizing to the African-American community, but Glickman assured him that it would help normalize friendships between children of different ethnicities.
Some of the strips featuring Franklin did tend to border on racist or stereotypical but never in a negative fashion. Franklin has always been one of the coolest, level-headed, even-keeled character in the entire series. He is a dancer, musician and a rapper.
It was Franklin's grandfather who said: "Once you get over the hill, all you can do is pick up speed."
Apollo 10, the fourth manned mission in the Apollo program and the second to travel to the moon (Apollo 8 was the first), launched May 18, 1969. The mission was a "dress rehearsal" for an actual landing on the moon by Apollo 11, two months later.
On board were Commander Thomas P. Stafford (from Oklahoma!), Command Module Pilot John W. Young, and Lunar Module Pilot Eugene A. Cernan. The Command Module was given the nickname Charlie Brown and the Lunar Module was dubbed Snoopy.
During the descent stage in the Lunar Module (Snoopy), the craft began to roll because Stafford and Cernan made duplicate commands in the computer. Snoopy rolled over eight times before they brought it under control, just 2 seconds before crashing onto the moon's surface.
Also, the crew of Apollo 10 reported hearing strange music on the far side of the moon. Some suggested aliens but most likely, it was interference between the lunar and command (Charlie Brown) modules.
One of the most beloved Christmas specials premiered December 9, 1965, just a mere 50 years ago. I didn't know until today that when Linus recites the line: "Fear not, for I bring you tidings of great joy!" he drops his blanket. Very symbolic!
According to imdb.com:
Kathy Steinberg, who did the voice of Sally Brown, had not yet learned to read at the time of production, so she had to be fed her lines, often a word or syllable at a time, which explains the rather choppy delivery of the line "All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share".
